
10
TOPICAL STUDIES ON THE
3.
Webster's Dictionary, edition 1869, says:
"The Dark
Day, May 19, 1780.—So
called on account of a remarkable
darkness on that day extending over all New England. . . .
The true cause of this remarkable phenomenon is not known."
"The dark day in northern America was one of those
wonderful phenomena of nature which will always be read
with interest, but which philosophy is at a loss to explain."
—Herschel.
"The 19th of May, in the year 1780, I well remember. I
was then in my sixteenth year. The morning was
clear
and
pleasant, but somewhere about
eight o'clock,
my father came
into the house and said there was an uncommon appearance
in the sun. There were
not any clouds,
but the air was thick,
having a smoky appearance, and the sun shone with a pale
and yellowish hue, but kept growing darker and darker,
until it was hid from sight. At noon we lit a candle, but it
did not give light as in the night, and my father could not
see to read with two candles."—Milo
Bostwick, Camden, N.
J., March 3, 1848.
4.
"At eight o'clock in the evening the darkness was so
impenetrably thick as to render, traveling positively imprac-
ticable, and, although the moon rose nearly full about nine
o'clock, yet it did not give light enough to enable a person
to distinguish between the heavens and the earth."—Great
Events of the Greatest Century, page
44.
"A great part of the following night also (May 19, 1780)
was singularly dark. The moon, though in the full, gave
no light, as in our text."—Sermon
by Rev. Elam Potter, May
28, 1780.
5.
"But the most sublime phenomenon of shooting stars,
of which the world has furnished any record, was witnessed
through the United States on the morning of the 13th of
November, 1833. The entire extent of this astonishing exhi-
bition has not been precisely ascertained, but it covered no
inconsiderable portion of the earth's surface. . . . The
first appearance was that of fireworks of the most imposing
grandeur, covering the entire vault of heaven with myriads
of fire-balls, resembling sky-rockets. Their coruscations were
bright, gleaming, and incessant, and they fell thick as the
flakes in the early snows of December. To the splendors of
this celestial exhibition the most brilliant sky-rocket and fire-
works of art bear less relation than the twinkling of the most
tiny star to the broad glare of the sun. The whole heavens
seemed in motion, and suggested, to some, the awful grandeur
"Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that He will send
forth laborers into His harvest."